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EDUCATE TOGETHER News Release 17th December 2009
Lucan schools celebrate
“light” and “giving”
The five Educate Together primary schools in the Lucan area will come
together in Griffeen Valley ETNS on Monday 21st December for a
seasonal celebration of Light and Giving. The event will include a ceremony of
lights and a plea for the gift of an Educate Together second-level school for
Lucan.
As part of their Learn Together
ethical education programme, each Educate Together school in the Lucan area is
currently focussing on a different winter festival or celebration and preparing
displays for the event.
Pupils from Griffeen Valley
ETNS, who are hosting the event this year, are learning about the Winter Solstice.
Esker ETNS are covering the Hindu festival, Diwali and children from Adamstown
Castle ETNS are preparing a display about Christmas. Lucan ETNS is studying the
Jewish holiday, Hanukah and pupils from the newest Educate Together school in
the area, Lucan East ETNS, are working on a display about Eid, the Muslim
celebration which marks the end of Ramadan.
The event is being organised
jointly by the Griffeen Valley PTA and the Lucan Task Force, which is
campaigning for an Educate Together second-level school in the area.
Carol Dunne, Chair of the Task
Force, says; “We are hoping that this will become an annual event for all our
school communities, hosted by a different school each year. This is an
important time of year for so many people with different religious and other
beliefs. We wanted to help people to come together to celebrate - and the
themes of light and giving seemed to be two that many of the traditions
represented in our schools had in common”.
The Educate Together schools in
the Lucan area are working hard to build a vibrant, respectful intercultural
community. Their equality-based ethos provides an ideal environment for
fostering positive intercultural community relations - as well as for
harnessing the positive resource that the multicultural and multilingual
diversity of the Lucan area provides.
Parents from the schools have
designed this logo for the event. The symbols represent many of the belief
systems that are represented in the school communities.
At the event on the 21st December following a performance including singing, dancing and drumming a
ceremony of lights will take place, during which parents and pupils will ask
for the gift of an Educate Together second-level school for the area. Representatives
from different faith and other belief communities will take part in the
ceremony.
Campaigns for an Educate
Together second-level school for Lucan stretch back nearly ten years and the
Minister for Education and Science has been considering an application from
Educate Together to be recognized as a patron of second-level schools for the
past two years. Officials from the Department of Education and Science recently
indicated that a decision on the organisation’s application would be made “in a
matter of weeks”.
For more information contact:
Emer Nowlan, Second-level Manager Tel: 01 429 2500
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